On the ‘Revolutionary Constituent Assembly’

Letter to French Leftists

The following is a translation of a letter sent to the Courant
Communiste Révolutionnaire (part of the French Nouveau Parti
anticapitaliste’s Platform 4 and sympathizers of the Trotskyist Fraction-Fourth
International) addressing perspectives for the Spanish 15M Movement (also known as the
indignados), which provided something of a model for the subsequent “Occupy
Wall Street” movement.

11 August 2011

Comrades,

We read with interest issue No.1 of Révolution
Permanente (June 2011), journal of the Courant Communiste Révolutionnaire
(CCR) of the NPA, as well as issue No.8 of Stratégie Internationale (June
2011), published by supporters of the Fraction Trotskyste-Quatrième Internationale
(FT-QI) inside the CCR. We find ourselves in overall agreement with Juan Chingo’s
article, “Leçons politiques et stratégiques de l’‘automne
français’” in Stratégie Internationale, which seems to
be a serious analysis of the treacherous role of the trade-union bureaucracy in sabotaging
working-class resistance to Sarkozy’s attack on pensions last fall.

However, there remain important differences, which we believe it is necessary to
clarify. One crucial issue is the perspective for the 15M (15 May) movement in Spain.
Revolutionary socialists clearly have a duty to intervene in the 15M movement despite the
fact that it is not centered on the proletariat and its demands are not socialist in
character. The fact that youth, workers and middle-class elements have embraced the
petty-bourgeois utopian call for “real democracy” as the answer to the mass
unemployment and other devastating consequences of the global capitalist crisis reflects
the bankruptcy of the existing leaderships (trade-union and partisan) of the
workers’ movement. Marxists intervene among the masses to convince them of the
necessity of orienting toward the socialist revolution.

As defenders of bourgeois-democratic rights, we defend the right of nations to
self-determination, demand full citizenship rights for all immigrants, support demands for
proportional representation in parliament and call for the abolition of the monarchy. We
also support the struggles of the masses to improve their lives, e.g., a fight for higher
wages. Yet as Marxists, we do not sow illusions that reforms can solve the fundamental
problems created by capitalism. Instead we seek to draw a sharp class line and put forward
a program that can help prepare the working class to struggle for power. As Leon Trotsky
explained in the Transitional Program:

“The Fourth International does not discard the program of the old
‘minimal’ demands to the degree to which these have preserved at least part of
their vital forcefulness. Indefatigably, it defends the democratic rights and social
conquests of the workers. But it carries on this day-to-day work within the frame-work of
the correct actual, that is, revolutionary perspective. Insofar as the old, partial
‘minimal’ demands of the masses clash with the destructive and degrading
tendencies of decadent capitalism—and this occurs at each step—the Fourth
International advances a system of transitional demands, the essence of which is
contained in the fact that ever more openly and decisively they will be directed against
the very bases of the bourgeois regime. The old ‘minimal program’ is
superseded by the transitional program, the task of which lies in systematic
mobilization of the masses for the proletarian revolution.”

This basic strategic orientation—the transitional program for workers’
power—aims at linking the immediate needs and aspirations of the masses to the
necessity of a workers’ state and a socialist planned economy. Unlike a Stalinist or
social-democratic “stagist” strategy, the transitional program builds a
“bridge between present demands and the socialist program of the revolution”
(Ibid.).

In “L’irruption de la jeunesse provoque les premières fissures dans
le regime issu du francquisme” (a statement on the 15M movement originally published
by the FT-QI’s Spanish comrades in Clase contra Clase No.25 [June 2011]),
Santiago Lupe advocates the construction of a revolutionary workers’ party to lead
the fight for a workers’ republic. Yet the strategic perspective he outlines is
inadequate to those tasks. Lupe writes:

“Through struggle, we must impose a constituent process throughout the
Spanish state, a Revolutionary Constituent Assembly, made up of representatives, elected
by every so many inhabitants, where we will discuss how we will resolve all the democratic
questions and all our economic and social needs. We must win this radical democratic
solution, that thousands of us are already demanding in the streets, only with our
struggle. The bosses’ parties and the monarchy are going to defend themselves tooth
and nail to prevent that, which is why this process can only be begun, by those who fight,
on the ruins of the current regime, by a provisional government formed by the workers and
groups in struggle that will overthrow the regime inherited from Franco and impose a
workers’ republic.”

While posed in a very left-wing fashion, we think that the demand for a
“revolutionary constituent assembly” in Spain today represents a political
adaptation to the illusions of the 15M movement in the need for bourgeois-democratic
reform. If the masses were to take up this demand there is no reason to expect that it
would automatically open the door to a struggle for workers’ power—instead it
could give Stalinists and other reformists the chance to divert popular anger into
haggling over the form and content of such an assembly, which they would doubtless treat
as a necessary “stage” prior to the transition to socialist rule. Trotsky
observed, in relation to the colonial and semi-colonial countries, that, “It is
impossible merely to reject the democratic program: it is imperative that in the struggle
the masses outgrow it. The slogan for a National (or Constituent) Assembly preserves its
full force for such countries as China or India” (op. cit.). He continued:

“The relative weight of the individual democratic and transitional
demands in the proletariat’s struggle, their mutual ties and their order of
presentation, is determined by the peculiarities and specific conditions of each backward
country and to a considerable extent—by the degree of its backwardness.
Nevertheless, the general trend of revolutionary development in all backward countries can
be determined by the formula of the permanent revolution in the sense definitely
imparted to it by the three revolutions in Russia (1905, February 1917, October
1917).”

In both neocolonial and imperialist countries where the population has no recent
experience of bourgeois democracy, the masses often have illusions that more
“democracy” will alleviate their hardships. Bourgeois-democratic illusions are
widespread in “normal” capitalist societies, but in situations of rising mass
anger with the irrationality of the profit system, Marxists have an opportunity to shatter
illusions in the possibility of meaningful reform under the continuing rule of the
bourgeoisie.

Under military dictatorships, fascist regimes, absolute monarchies, etc., the workers
often think that life under liberal democracy would be qualitatively better. In
economically backward countries where the land question and other tasks of the
bourgeois-democratic revolution have not been resolved, the desire for
“democracy” often dominates the aspirations of the masses. In such situations
it is the duty of Marxists to explain that only the working class, the natural leader of
all oppressed social layers, has both the material interest and social power to
successfully address these issues. During the anti-Mubarak uprising in Egypt earlier this
year, the issue of the constituent assembly was clearly posed, as we noted:

“Many who have suffered under Mubarak imagine that free elections will
solve their problems. Some have called for a constituent assembly to draw up a new
democratic constitution. Marxists support the masses’ yearning for democracy while
insisting that a constituent assembly capable of sweeping away autocratic rule requires
the revolutionary overthrow of the present regime. The fundamental issue posed in Egypt
today is which class shall rule. In order to move forward, the anti-Mubarak revolt must
begin to create institutions which will allow workers and the poor to exercise their will.
An essential step is to establish new unions which are independent of the bosses and their
state. It is also necessary to set up councils of delegates from different workplaces and
working-class neighborhoods throughout the country, just like Russian workers did in the
revolutions of 1905 and 1917.”—“Mass Revolt in Egypt,” 1917
No.33

In our view the call for a constituent assembly is inapplicable in Spain today, because
the population has experienced bourgeois democracy for a generation. As you note, the
present regime “issued from Francoism,” but despite that it is qualitatively
similar to other bourgeois-democratic societies. The job of Spanish revolutionaries in the
present context is to explain that the “real democracy” that can end
unemployment and satisfy the needs of the masses can be nothing other than a
workers’ republic. Your suggestion that a revolutionary constituent assembly might
itself produce a workers’ republic—a suggestion doubtless aimed at more easily
getting a hearing from those in the grip of the petty-bourgeois prejudices currently
prevalent in the 15M movement—tends to confuse things by conflating the class
character of the two institutions. A constituent assembly is not a proletarian body, but
rather an expression of the bourgeois-democratic struggle which the proletariat might have
to take up and seek to lead on the road to establishing the rule of workers’
councils, i.e., soviets. In the best case a constituent assembly, dominated by the
revolutionary socialist party, can endorse a soviet government, thereby helping to
neutralize the resistance of the petty bourgeoisie.

We know of several cases where comrades of the FT-QI have proposed revolutionary
constituent assemblies when there is already a functioning bourgeois democracy. For
example, in 2001, your Bolivian comrades wrote:

“The revolutionary Marxists of the LOR-CI support the democratic
aspirations of the mass movement, but unlike all these sectors, we argue that there cannot
be any Constituent Assembly able to fulfill the needs of workers and the oppressed people
of Bolivia—if it is convened by the present government and political
regime.…[W]e fight for a Constituent Assembly called by a provisional government of
labor organizations, built on the ruins of the revolutionary fall of the current
régime….” —Estrategia Internacional No.17, April 2001

You noted that the peasant masses had entered the political scene frustrated at the
inadequacies of the bourgeois democracy that had existed for a decade-and-a-half in
Bolivia. It was the desire of these masses for a constituent assembly that led you to
adopt the slogan as your own, and to attempt to justify your position with reference to
the Bolshevik-Leninist tradition:

“It was Lenin and Trotsky’s understanding of this situation that
led them to struggle for formal democratic demands, not only in semi-colonial countries
lacking a parliamentary tradition such as Russia in 1917 or China from 1927 to 1929, but
also in countries with a long tradition like France in 1934 (see Leon Trotsky ‘A
Program of Action for France,’ 1934).”—Ibid.

In reading over “A Program of Action for France” (and other works by
Trotsky from the period), we can find no example of him advocating a revolutionary
constituent assembly in France, where bourgeois democracy was then under attack by
rightist forces. Trotsky did advance several democratic demands, including the abolition
of the senate and presidency in favor of a single legislative assembly elected on a
democratic basis. These are supportable demands that, like proportional representation,
Marxists advocate. However, Trotsky’s proposals did not center on making
bourgeois-democratic demands—the perspective he outlined was one of creating organs
of proletarian rule:

“Constituted as organs of popular defense against fascism, these
workers’ alliance committees and these peasant committees must become, during the
course of the struggle, organisms directly elected by the masses, organs of power of the
workers and peasants. On this basis the proletarian power will be erected in opposition to
the capitalist power, and the Workers’ and Peasants’ Commune will
triumph.”

In 2002 in Argentina (a country with a bourgeois-democratic system), you again demanded
a revolutionary constituent assembly: “as Marxist revolutionaries, we raised the
demand for a Revolutionary Constituent Assembly after the December days to differentiate
it from the ‘democratic’ versions, even the most ‘radical’ that
the bourgeois regime could adopt to survive” (Estrategia Internacional
No.18, February 2002). We think that in this situation Marxists should have opposed all
attempts by the reformists to divert a potentially revolutionary crisis into a discussion
of how best to refurbish the mechanisms of the bourgeois republic. Raising the call for a
constituent assembly in a country where bourgeois democracy had existed for almost two
decades could only confuse matters, as we noted at the time:

“The key task of Trotskyists in Argentina today is to struggle to forge
a revolutionary leadership based on a programme of proletarian political independence from
all wings of the bourgeoisie. The influence of Peronism (bourgeois nationalist populism)
within the Argentine workers’ movement cannot be combated by attempts to project
demands for a constituent assembly as the road to a workers’ government. This can
only create confusion and help set the stage for defeat.”—“‘Blunting the Edge of Revolutionary
Criticism’,” reprinted in 1917 No.25, 2003

In our view, the job of revolutionaries in Spain today is not to present the socialist
program as some sort of radical democratic alternative but to advance a proletarian
perspective aimed at mobilizing for workers’ power.